_________________"I thought, well, heaven, all that marble and giltwork, sounds a bit middle class. I would prefer something that was, I don't know, carpeted and had skirting boards, things like that." — Alan Moore

Then I watch Valerio Zurlini’s The Girl with a Suitcase. The first thing Cardinale does in the picture is have a piss by the roadside. Then she’s dumped by her rich playboy. Then she meets his younger brother (Jacques Perrin), who falls for her but doesn’t quite know he’s doing so, because he’s 16, because he’s so bien elevee and polite that his concern is for her welfare rather than his heart. Zurlini likes to watch Cardinale walk as Hitchcock liked to watch Montgomery Clift walk, and the set-piece conversations between her and Perrin are as intense as those between Clift and Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun (1951). The film’s structured around them. Maybe it’s the altitude, or the beauty of Cardinale and Perrin, who vie to outdo each other in the allure of their eyes and skin, but my breathing gets shallower as the film goes on. The finale, on a beach at dusk, after a lot has been said and pretended and imagined and feared, made me feel 16 again.

I think B-Side should be the one to download it and upload it to Dropbox

I'm still waiting.

_________________"I thought, well, heaven, all that marble and giltwork, sounds a bit middle class. I would prefer something that was, I don't know, carpeted and had skirting boards, things like that." — Alan Moore

_________________"I thought, well, heaven, all that marble and giltwork, sounds a bit middle class. I would prefer something that was, I don't know, carpeted and had skirting boards, things like that." — Alan Moore

There has been a tendency among Italian critics, when not dismissing Zurlini's body of work, to frame it in the context of its aesthetic qualities alone. If nothing else, La Ragazza con la Valigia is proof that his work does in fact belong; that it deserves to be considered not just in a material context but also a historical one. In this case, the subject is the Italian economic "miracle" of the fifties and early sixties, which not only influenced the film industry but also the content of its output. Suddenly, social values changed: it became not about survival but about how to make a quick buck, often aggressively and with little regard for the law, as seen in films like Dino Risi's Il Sorpasso and Vittorio De Sica's Il Boom. Life for many, from each end of the class spectrum, became one lived in the fast lane; between the highway, top down with the wind blowing through one's hair, and the beach - two locations that are a feature of this period in Italian cinema, and act as bookends here. In the words of Jameson, there became a certain nostalgia for the present, with tradition being dismissed in favour of fashion and consumerism - something that Zurlini attempts to illustrate here by contrasting, at times jarringly, classical music with the pop songs of the time. There are also the symbols of consumerism, such as the iconic Coca Cola logo, but also general household conveniences like the record player, iron and telephone (or, publicly, the jukebox and swinging chair); at one point, Claudia Cardinale's character comments, wide-eyed, on her young companion's black ceramic bath: "I didn't know Italy had these", she says. As Gian Piero Brunetta has pointed out, it was often strong female characters who "paid the highest price" in films from this period - Antonio Pietrangeli's La Parmigiana and La Conoscevo Bene, to give two more examples - and that is certainly the case here, given that the majority of the male characters treat Cadinale's Aida like nothing more than a piece of meat. Yet, the narrative is ultimately cyclical, in that she is just as keen to exploit the young man who falls in love with her.

La Coppia Impossibile e la Porta Chiusa

So yes, La Ragazza con la Valigia is certainly topical, but I like that it is rooted in something more traditional: the story of the "impossible couple", like Romeo and Juliet, who are bound to be apart because of their respective backgrounds. It is a cross-class relationship, something that Zurlini makes abundantly clear, but then these are no star-crossed lovers in that his feelings are clearly unrequited - or, at least, not initially reciprocated. There is also a prominent age gap, as well as a stark difference in sexual innocence and purity (his is intact, hers is not) - she mentions at one point that she has a son, but we hear nothing more of him. There was a similar central relationship in Zurlini's preceding Estate Violenta, but with less of an age gap. On reflection, La Ragazza con la Valigia reminds me a lot more of Jerzy Skolimowski's later Deep End, which features many of the aspects listed previously. Ultimately, we get the impression that the older female character is very much aware of the effect she is having on her younger male counterpart, even if she says otherwise. She is flattered by the attention, and appreciates that it is a lot less threatening than most of the attention she usually receives, and in the end takes it for granted. Once again, eventually becoming the abuser that exploits and then dumps her at the beginning of the film. Another thing I noticed about Cardinale's Aida character is that, while seeming to throw herself headlong into bad situations, she is actually quite defensive. This is perhaps best illustrated in a recurring exchange, in which she is disturbed in her apartment by a knock at the door, and calls out for the person to enter despite the door being locked. To me, this is Zurlini showing that his female protagonist is very conscious of the image she portrays in public, and how that differs with who she is when by herself. Her fortune will not be attained by crafty or underhand means, as with the hustlers of Italian cinema during this period, but by how she conducts herself.

_________________"I thought, well, heaven, all that marble and giltwork, sounds a bit middle class. I would prefer something that was, I don't know, carpeted and had skirting boards, things like that." — Alan Moore

Hey, I really enjoyed this! From the descriptions I'd read and the blurbs Jedi posted, I expected something much more cynical and ironic. Apparently Mark Cousins was the only one who saw the same film I did. It's a simple story, elevated by those faces, and a delicate, probing understanding of Aida's constantly changing motivations. Both characters are satisfyingly complex. Oh, and I loved the music all the way through. That scene where she comes down the stairs to the Verdi!

I have a big question about the end:

Did his final gift mean he saw her as someone who needed to be paid? That's the way I first took it, a cynical joke of a love letter. But that doesn't seem to fit with the level of mutual understanding I read in their goodbye. Strangely enough, I think a lot depends on how much it is. Is it enough to actually buy her some freedom from the men she uses to survive? Then I think it'd be more of a 'grand gesture,' a final, foolish proof of love.

Aw, I wasn't bored at all. I was afraid I was going to be when she went back to her old life. But then it got good again. I guess if you were bored it didn't do anything visually interesting? This isn't the type of film I'd normally expect to enjoy. It's almost... romantic. I guess if there's a type of movie love I like it's doomed love.

He does what he did in the other two I saw: creates a tension between a character in the foreground on one side of the frame, and another character on the other at a different depth. No shot-reverse-shot stuff. The visual tension is not instructive here, however (unlike in Estate Violenta, in which it is palpable). It's not entirely without visual interest though. I'm thinking of their meeting on the mansion steps, with the shadow of the swaying tree on the wall...and the clock between them at the end. As with Cronaca familiare, it has a leisurely, protracted pace, one I can dig until about halfway when I decide the drama is tedious. Is it really complex as you say?

Maybe not. I just really liked that we got to see her thought processes as much as we did (I didn't expect to sympathize with her, but I could see why she felt trapped), and, that, at the end, there seemed to be a realistic understanding between them. It didn't turn into a soft-focus romantic fantasy.

- The first 30-40 minutes are painfully boring, mainly because the blocking severely limits the actors' ability to move naturally, and they come off as almost lethargic as a result - The dance scene at the hotel and what immediately follows it is pure gold. I wish the rest of the film had been this self-contained, well paced and full of simple glances conveying complex emotions.- Whoever handled the dubbing/ADR wasn't very good at what they do, but I suppose that's a problem with most Italian productions. It's hard to take Cardinale's lip syncing seriously when she seems to be doing it to a different song.- The final shot might be iconic if the film were better known, because it's almost a perfect emotional send-off.

Overall, I'd say I quite liked it. I just wish the first third hadn't been so pedestrian.

So if I were to put up a #11 over the weekend (or sooner), would anyone be interested? Would anyone object to my doing it? I've had this film sitting on my HD for a week or so now, and I'm pretty sure everyone is unfamiliar with the director.

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